Written January 24, 2002

Joe and I always just kind of... knew. We knew we'd get married someday. We talked about the future. And when someone would mention something happening in 30 years, I couldn't imagine my life, my future, without Joe. We talked online for hours. We talked on the phone for hours. We said "I love you" a hundred times a day, and we still do. We are the best of friends!

We went to our friends' wedding, too. And when we were there, we kept talking about ideas for our wedding. "When we get married, let's have..." and any number of things followed. One of the ideas was robot waiters. One woman saw us together and said, "And when are you two getting married?"

Without missing a beat, Joe said, "March 22, 2002." He is so funny!, I thought. But I remembered the date, because I wanted to see if he'd be right or not.

And we'd just have those conversations. The ones that started with Joe saying, "Okay, how 'bout this? For our wedding...." And he'd shoot out this crazy but awesome idea. Or we'd be standing in the mall and one of us would say, "Let's go get married right now!" We'd consider it, then say we'd wait until the time was really right.

I was never really the type of kid to imagine every last detail of my ideal wedding, like some girls did. However, one time, I saw a celebrity wedding episode of "Oprah," and mused that an outdoor beach wedding with everyone in bare feet might be fun. And that's what I told Angela when she asked me what my ideal dream wedding would be. I also imagined other wedding scenarios just for fun... a forest, an old church, a pretty chapel, a hotel, etc. I was never really set on any one idea.

I had dreamed of studying abroad for a long time, too. One time I thought I'd spend a few months in Spain in the Fall, take the Spring off, and go back to school the next Fall. "Joe," I said one morning. "How about if we get married that Spring that I have off from school?!"

"No," he said matter-of-factly.

"No?"

"It wouldn't be good for you for school if we got married. It might affect your chances for financial aid. I don't know. We should only get married if it won't affect your school. We should just wait until you graduate, probably." I wasn't going to be graduating for at least another two years.

"Okay," I said, a little sad that my idea of a romantic proposal hadn't gone quite as expected.

And then something strange happened in June 2001. I sat on the air mattress of our new Bay Area apartment, with my UCLA Intent to Register forms in my lap, reading the fine print. I came across something bizarre, something very different than the policy of the smaller college I'd attended for the past two years. I read it. I read it again.

"Joe..."

"Yes?" he said, sitting at the computer.

"I'm not a California resident."

"What do you mean?"

"It says here I am only considered a resident if I'm financially independent. There's a lot of military type of reasons, and there's only two others on this list I can qualify for. I can be a resident if I'm single and haven't been declared as a dependent on my parents' taxes for two years. Or I can be a resident if I'm married and haven't been declared as a dependent on my parents' taxes for one year. It's only been a year since I've been a dependent on my parents' taxes..."

"Is there a big difference in tuition?"

"An eleven thousand dollar difference."

"Woah! So, what are you saying?" He paused, then added, "Are you saying you want to get married?"

I smiled at him slyly. "Yeah!"

"Really? Okay! I'll marry you!! You want to get married soon? Like, this summer? You want to get married next month? I'll marry you next month!"

"Yeah!" I laughed.

"Okay," he said with a smile.

"Okay, I need to kiss you now," I told him as I set down my papers and crawled off the air mattress over to Joe's chair and gave him a big kiss.

"Wow, are we really doing this?" he said.

"Yes!" I said, feeling an excited fluttering in my stomach.

I called my mom and told her our plan. She said, "Wow, that's great! You know that really is the best idea!"

So that was it! After some discussion, we thought if we were going to invite any family members, we might as well invite them all. And if we were inviting family, why not invite our close friends as well? After all, they're family, too! So, we asked what everyone's schedules were like, and since a lot of my family is in school, the best dates for them were in December (Christmas Break) and March (Spring Break). Well I preferred March and one of my most favorite holidays is St. Patrick's Day, the 17th! The 17th was during everyone's Spring Break, and worked out great with everyone's schedule. So that was it! That was The Date!

And it turns out, it really wasn't too far off the mark from Joe's original guess that he made at our friends' wedding. Cool!

We've gone back and forth over tons of ideas: Disneyland, Disney World, Los Angeles, Orange County, the Wayfarer's Chapel, countless other L.A. locations, Reno, Tahoe, and of course, Vegas (Viva Las Vegas, Excalibur, countless other chapels whose sites I browsed...)!

When I looked at everything individually, it seemed so complicated. Hiring someone for flowers, someone else for photography and videography, someone else for renting chairs, someone else to perform the ceremony, someone else for music... Aaah! And some places had packaged deals, like Disney World, who gives a beautiful ceremony for $10,000, if you only have 8 guests. Bah! My family alone is way more than 8 people! It all seemed so expensive and complex. And that's when I discovered the beauty of Las Vegas. It's all put together: packages that are simple, beautiful, include everything at a decent price, and best of all, are stress free. There's no better way to go, in my opinion!!

Vegas it is! We chose the Canterbury Wedding Chapel in the Excalibur Hotel and Casino, because it's beautiful, and I love the whole castle, midieval, theme. We got the date we wanted, and at a nice time of day, too (5:00pm!). I'm so excited!

So that's how this wonderful journey began, and I'm fully looking forward to St. Patrick's Day this year, moreso than ever before!